We cannot feast while there is famine.
JVP Rabbinical Council Stands in Solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2021
Contact: Sonya E Meyerson-Knox | sonya@jvp.org | 929-290-0317
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The Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, as Jewish spiritual leaders, stands in solidarity with the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah as they continue to resist terrorization and expulsion from their homes.
We oppose the decades-long campaign to expel over 1,500 long-term Palestinian residents, which is the product of longstanding Israeli government policy executed in concert with a radical settler movement that explicitly aims to displace Palestinian families and neighborhoods in order to replace them with Jewish settlers. We oppose nationalistic quotas and movements to retain Jewish demographic supremacy in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, and in territories that Israel occupies and controls.
We further decry the brutal and repressive campaign of violence by Israeli forces to drive residents from their homes to clear the way for settlements, tactics including rubber-coated bullets, “skunk water,” and sound bombs. We watch in horror as Israeli forces attack Palestinians at prayer in Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, during the holy month of Ramadan.
In last week’s Torah portion, we read that the Jewish people, like all the people of the world, “are sojourners and dwellers with Me.” (Leviticus 25:23) In that connection we are repeatedly admonished that the land belongs to God – and we are not to torment or oppress others.
We call on the US government and Secretary of State Blinken to join with the United Nations and the European Union, among others, to advocate forcefully for the rights of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah to remain in their homes in peace.
– The Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council
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Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 500,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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